Of Darkest Nights
by Prelude.of.Decay
Summary: Four hundred years have passed since my mortal death. I am now one with the darkness...forgotten among the world of the living. Though, in this story I am about to tell, I find my way back into the past. Back into my world as it was before I was changed
1. Default Chapter

A/N: I hope you enjoy this story, my newest. And PLEASE, tell me what you think of it once you read it. If it sucks, TELL ME (just be a little nice). If you like it, also tell me. I'll keep on writing if you like it. Otherwise, I'll just think: What's the point?

Oh, and just to make things clear for some. Yes, this is a fanfic. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' characters will be seen in the later chappys. When my own creation-Vampire Colette, happens upon Risika and a few others. Disclaimer: Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' characters belong to her not me...and so does anything that has to do with her stories and creations. Enjoy.

Frodocrazi

PROLOGUE

The vampire eyes haunted me. As a child, I had looked up from my bed and found them staring at me from the darkness. But I never spoke to them, and never them I. Every night as the sun faded from the sky and the darkness arose, I saw the eyes, watching me from the shadows, observing everything I did. The first time I walked, I watched them from the corner of my eye, watching the gleaming dark eyes as they stared endlessly at me. "What are you looking at?" my mother had asked me, looking into the shadows and seeing nothing. She did not expect me to answer her, because in her eyes I was barely a human being. She talked to me as if I was incomprehensible, as any mother would talk to their child. But inside I knew what the eyes were, and I was thrilled every moment I saw them.

On my fifth birthday, my mother and father had celebrated my birthday by dressing me up in luxurious silk dresses and having our cook, Gretta, bake me a wonderful cake. As we sat around our dining table that night and they prattled on about the prominence of my fifth birthday, I found myself gazing out of the window into the darkness and waiting for the eyes to appear. Though, they did not appear. I had felt my heart panic, and I looked frantically through each of the vast windows around me for some trace of the eyes. But they were not there, not looking at me as they had every night of my life. "Anna, dear," my father had addressed me, sounding as if he had actually cared. I turned my head to acknowledge him, but my eyes were darting back to the windows, hoping for the eyes to appear.

"Anna," my father spoke again, his voice louder and harsher. I tore my eyes from the windows and looked him in the eyes. I found emptiness. A deep pit of nothing.

"Your eyes," I whispered to him. And he squinted his horrid empty eyes and looked at me as he done many times before. Looking at me like I was something pitiful and strange, as if he were thinking how could I ever be his child, his own blood. "They are nothing," I spoke, my words slow and almost a whisper. I yearned to see the vampire eyes once more, and I turned from my father to look for the eyes I knew were not there.

But as I laid in my bed that night, I could not sleep or think of anything other than the eyes, and I felt as if a part of me were missing. "What are you looking for, darling?" my mother had asked me as she knelt by my bed to kiss me. I didn't answer her that night nor when she leaned over me and kissed me lightly on the cheek, though for many years after I had regretted doing so. The biggest regret of my life. When she got up and stood in the doorway to my room, I saw her for the last time, and I remember her exactly: her long brown hair hanging over her shoulders and her beautiful emerald eyes gleaming at me as she whispered that she loved me. And then she had left, closing the door behind her and leaving me in silence...all alone, as I would be for an eternity. But I never thought of that, because all I could think of was how the eyes had abandoned me on such a special day.

And the night had dragged on slowly, the silence looming in the house as a deadly disease, and the darkness seeming to whisper to me of something. I couldn't sleep at all that night, only stare out my window, searching for hope of the vampire returning. But, during the middle of ill-fated night, as I was lying in my bed and praying to God for my vampire friend to return, I heard a shrill scream from somewhere inside our great mansion...the voice, that of my mothers. But, as I was only a child, I stayed in my bed in fear, cowering under my silk blankets, hoping the scream was not real. And then I heard yet another, and the screams were coming closer to my room. "God, please make the screams leave. I don't want to be scared," I prayed in a whisper, but the screams were coming closer. And, with my fists clenching my blankets and my tears streaming down my small face, I watched the handle to my door turn, clicking as someone was opening my door.

I remember crying instead of screaming, and begging God to help me, just this once. But I suppose God does not hear prayers, because the door crashed open and I found a man standing before me with a bloody knife in his hand. And at that moment, I recognized who had come to bring me pain, and I cried to him, our manservant, "Mr. Rollins! The screams!" He ignored me and came so close to me, so that I could smell the foul liquor on his breath. I tried to move away, but he grabbed hold of me and held me down under his arm so that I was helpless under his power. His rough, calloused hands had slithered up my nightgown and touched me where I had never been touched. And I struggled, screaming and biting down on his rough hands, staining my own nightgown with his blood and my tears. But then he took the silk sheets of my bed and pulled them against my face to smother me. And as I screamed, no one could hear it, and I could only listen to my own heartbeat racing as the man killed me. With my last breath, I whispered, "Dear God, if you are real...save me..." Then I waited...and I felt myself slipping away... dying away into nothing.

But I never died, my demise disrupted as a pair of stone white hands lifted the manservant off of my bed and threw him across the room to where he slammed his skull against the stone fireplace. I heard the sickening crack and I whipped up, tearing the sheets off my face and gasping for breath. And then I sat there in shock, gasping for air and looking over to my rescuer. But before I could see such a face, he left my side and as if he had never moved a muscle, was instantly on top of the manservant and I could only see splatters of blood as my rescuer, the vampire, drank away what was left of Mr. Rollins' life. His body rocked back and forth in a rhythm as he drank our manservant's blood, and his marble hands had combed through Mr. Rollin's bloody hair. When he was finished, he lifted his head up, his face away from me, and dropped Mr. Rollins dead body on the floor, his dead eyes staring up at me.

And then he left...disappearing before my very eyes as if he were a phantom. I sat on my bed and stared at the sight around me, the bloodshed and death lingering about in the air so bad that I could hardly grasp the reality of it. The only thing that seemed real was the breeze flowing over my face and stirring my hair, coming from the window where the vampire had come and left. I ran over to the window and looked down, only to see nothing except the grass swaying about in the wind as if nothing had ever happened. And the last thing I remember of the night was finding my father dead on the floor...and my dear mother lying in her bloody bed, her face calm and pale as death carried her away from me forever.


	2. Vampire Hunter

† Chapter I †

The Year of 1999

New York City

It is a cold and sad night, and I am walking into a Vampire Haven. No eyes follow me because they know who I am...and they dare not even look me way. I am one of the oldest vampires living....almost four hundred years old, and every vampire can feel my power as I enter the haven. They are afraid of me...of what I can do to them. They know that even with my mind, I can destroy them. Burn them up until they are nothing but ashes floating in the air. And sensing their fear as I enter the Haven, I smile. My mind feels content as I feel my superiority, and I do not feel as low as I had felt only moments ago. When I drank from a young woman lost in the streets of New York. I heard her pleas and they still echoed in my mind. "Please! I don't want to die!" the woman had sobbed in my arms. I had read her mind and found that she was a young college student...and she was engaged to a wonderful young man named John. And I knew she was to have a wonderful life. A life where she was a loving mother and had such a beautiful family. But as I felt the desire to save her... let her live as she should and live out a life I was robbed of, my weakness overcame me. The lust and overbearing need to drink her life away overwhelmed me. The smell of her blood was all I could think of, and her heartbeats pounded in my ears. I was growing weaker as every second passed. I was growing blind with desire, and I was only a bloodthirsty beast before its prey. And when the desire left me, I found the woman dead in my arms.

_A killer_, I whispered to myself. For the first time in years, I realized how weak I truly was. I could not even let the woman live, because my vampire nature was too strong. I looked down in my arms and saw the bloody mess left of the woman. Her neck was broken and her head slung over her shoulder as if she were a ragdoll. I dropped her to the ground and stood there as still as a statue. I could not cry, even though I felt like sobbing on the street. The tears did not come, because tears were human and I was not. And so I stood there for the longest time, my pain locked inside of my dead body. I knew that no matter what I thought or wanted, I had to kill every night like I did this night. It was what I did. It was how I lived, even though my living was not would you would call life.

And I left the dead woman, walking endless through the city streets. I cared not where I would go, because I wanted the sun to rise with me out to greet it. I wanted to die as I was supposed to. Was a person really to live four hundred years? I asked myself. But I knew I was not a person, nor never would be. And I was caught in my mind when he found me. I was locked in my dark mind wishing to die because I was sick of living. And then I heard a voice from the darkness. I fell to the cold street and woke up from my dispairing stupor. "Who--who is there?" I asked, jumping up from the ground as if I had floated. I heard a cackle from the shadows.

"Surprise," the voice whispered, and it had an English accent to it. I had never heard the voice before.

"Who are you?" I demanded, stepping back from the darkness into the light of a streetlight and curling back my pale lips to reveal my long piercing fangs. I changed my eyes to a penetrating red and flashed the darkness. I made myself look as I was. A demon. But the owner of the voice was not afraid. He only laughed. A dark and fearless bellow of a laugh.

"You already know," the voice spoke, coming closer. Its laugh seemed to mock me. He was unfraid. Unafraid of a vampire that could kill him in an instant. I understood at once that he was not a vampire. Because a vampire would have sensed who I was and cowered away in fear. No, this was no vampire. And as I thought more of who and _what _he was, I became more afraid. Could this infuriating _thing_ be more powerful than I?

"Step into the light," I said to him, my voice shaking...and he noticed it. I heard him laugh again as he came forward. He took his time, trying to spend as much of it as he could in the dark. But when he stepped into the light before me, I could feel that he had come to find me. He had been hunting me. Yes, hunting. The man was what you call a Vampire Hunter. I knew that of him when I laid my eyes on him. On his tall burly figure and his dark framed glasses. He had on a dark trenchcoat and held a dark hat which I figured he wore to cover up the bald spot on his head. But his face was what really got to me. He did not smile, even when he laughed...and his face looked as if he had risen from the dead. He was pale and he wore no emotion in his expressions, and his face looked so worn out and sulken. I could have almost felt bad for him. Almost.

"Good evening, Mrs. Collins," he said to me slowly, drawing out each word. I almost gasped as he said those words. How could he have known my name? I had not been called such a name in four hundred years. The last time I was a Mrs. Collins was when I was still a mortal. A human. I looked at him in shock after he said it, and he managed to make some sort of smile with his ugly face. But the smile was a smile of enjoying another's pain. I grimaced.

"I know no Mrs. Collins," I lied to him, and he laughed at me...mocking me. He was playing some sort of game.

"I know who you are," he said to me then...pulling his black coat tighter around his large stomach. "I have followed you for some time now. And I know all about you...about who you have killed and what type of creature you are," he said. I stood there in shock. "Why, you are a _vampire_," he whispered...as if it were a secret. I almost smiled.

"And what do you want with this _vampire_? To kill me?" I asked him. I was getting hungry watching him gloat about knowing of me. It scared me he knew so much, because it was dangerous for vampires to be known of by mortals. Somehow mortals cannot accept who we are. But I wasn't about to let this fool of a human get to me. I stepped closer and flashed my fangs to him again. But he seemed unimpressed.

"Vampires are unique creatures..." he told me...as if I did not know. "To many they are myths. But I know better. Though, to bring back the corpse of such a creature. And a powerful one at that...." I stared at him smiling then. I knew he could not kill me, though he assumed differently. And as he rambled on to me, I watched him slip out a wooden stake from inside of his trenchcoat. I almost laughed as he did so, and he smiled. He thought he could kill me with a wooden stake! Mortals were so very, very foolish. If a vampire is such a powerful creature, than how could it die by such a little thing as being stabbed in the heart with a stake? My wound would heal immediately and I would walk away with not even a scratch. And as I looked closer, I noticed a cross around his neck. I could not help but laugh. As if a cross would harm me! Mortals assume that since we are demons, we should be terrified of God and everything to do with Him. But in truth, I believe in God. I believe in Him just as I had when I was a mortal. Though as an immortal, I see no reason to flock to the nearest church every chance I can to redeem my soul. For I have no soul. And I will never see God. Will never stand before Him to be judged whether to be hailed to heaven or cast into hell. I am already in hell. Hell in the form of an eternity on earth....and I did nothing to deserve it.

"What is it that you find so amusing, Mrs. Collins?" the vampire hunter asked me, his eyes glowing as if he was so sure of himself. He truly believed he could kill me. I smiled even more as he spoke to me, and I licked the tips of my fangs in delight. It would be fun killing this arrogant fool.

"Well, I'm just...surprised that you dare to kill me. You _do _know who I am, do you not? And I am not speaking of a _Mrs. Collins._ She died four hundred years ago...and now you stand before a vampire who could kill you in an instant," I said, taking a second to laugh. My laugh cold and dark. "Here I thought you would be running off in fear...shitting in your pants. But instead you stay. And of course, that is what I find so amusing...Though, you are wasting your time." I stepped closer to the foolish vampire hunter and stared him in the face. But he did not reek of fear as I had thought he would. Instead he managed to stretch a long smile across his face.

"There you are wrong," he whispered, spitting the words out in defiance. And in a flash, he slipped the stake before my pale face and stabbed it as hard as he could into my chest. My heart. I suppose he thought it was still alive, and not the black dead thing it was.

I did, though, felt a sharp pain pierce through my chest, but only for a second, because before the hunter could even take another breath, I had wrenched the stake out of my heart and stabbed it into his chest. But as hard as I pushed, I did not feel the stake slice through his chest. It did not go through at all. I stared at it in awe and the Vampire hunter grabbed my head and pulled it back exposing my throat. "I wish you luck in the afterlife, Mrs. Collins. It is time to see the fiery pit of hell God has reserved for the damned." And then I felt a cold sharp knife against the pale skin of my throat. I whimpered, and I felt like a child. So weak and scared.

And then I gathered all of the power in my mind and tried to kill him with all of my strength. But nothing happened. I struggled and gasped against the hunter, but he did not let go and instead slit my throat open before him. I could feel the warm blood pouring out of me and I could not even talk, the pain overbearing. The blood was even spilling out of my mouth and dripping down my neck and breasts. But then I realized the flesh of his arm was against my face. And in terror and anguish, I swung my face towards his arm and bit through it, my teeth like razors. But I did not bite his flesh. Instead I bit into a rough, almost metal material that hid underneath his trenchcoat. And it dawned on me. This man was wearing some sort of armor. I gaped in fear and cried out as I felt myself growing weaker.

"Who is running off shitting in his pants now?" the hunter asked me. I heard his voice above me and looked up to see him smiling down at me. I almost smiled, too. He was such a fool. A fool to bend his face to mine just to mock me. And before he finished smiling, I lunged at his face and bit onto his mouth. His horrid mouth. I bit so hard on it that I could feel the flesh of his lips in my own mouth. I growled like an animal...a beast, and I sucked on his face...drinking as fast as I could. Sucking so much of him into my throat. Eating as much of his face I was able to. And the screams of his that echoed in my ears were like music. As his arms grew limp and his grip on me fell, I lifted my face from his mouth and ripped open the collar of his shirt, exposing his throat. And I lunged at it, piercing my fangs into his veins and his flesh, sucking the rest of his life away. In a matter of minutes, the arrogant fool was dead on the street.

"I wish you luck in the afterlife, my friend," I whispered to the corpse. "Enjoy that fiery pit of hell." As I turned to leave then, I felt as if something was wrong. Not right. As I turned back around to the body, I saw a glow underneath the man's shirt. A bright red glow that seemed to call to me. I leaned down over the corpse and lifted open the shirt to find a chain hanging from the man's neck...the glow reflecting brighter off of the armor he wore. The chain held a bright red stone. And it glowed furiously. "How did you get this?" I asked the dead man as I lifted the chain from his neck. I held the chain in my hands and watched the stone glow brighter as I held it. As it glowed under my stare, I felt a wave of recognition wash over me, and I gasped as I realized what it was I was holding. Almost intictively I lifted the chain and placed it around my own neck. It went dead. The red light gone and a dark still stone lying around my neck. Just as it always did.

I stood up and turned to leave, but something in my mind said that it was not enough. Suddenly my anger arose and seemed to overcome me. The light from the streetlights disappeared and everything went black around me except the glitter of silver that laid on the street before me. As if I could not control myself, I picked up the silver knife, that the Vampire Hunter had tried to kill me with, from the shadows of the dark street and walked back over to him. I could see his half-eaten face glaring up at me even as he was dead. And then I took my time, spending hours just cutting away at the man. Slicing him into so many parts that he didn't even represent a human being when I was finished.

When he was only a pile of flesh, I walked away, my heels clicking on the streets. And when I turned around, a pack of hungry dogs had gathered around the flesh and began eating away. They would have a feast tonight.


	3. Blase

† Chapter II †

The Vampire Haven

Central New York City

"And what brings you here this very fine night, Colette?" the vampire named Sariä asks me, her blood-stained lips reeking of blood as she speaks. She leans over the blood bar and smirks at me, tossing her bright red hair over her pale shoulder. I notice she hardly looks at all like a vampire, with a sheer white halter top and red mini skirt on. The only thing vampire about her are her dead eyes and the pale of her skin. Her fangs hardly even look like a vampire's, because they are oddly small...just barely longer than a human's. She smiles to me and I smile in return, yet I notice the fear in her face.

She taps her long nails against the wood of the table in uneasiness as she waits for me to talk. Her gray eyes look at me with fear in them, and I am surprised she manages to ask me a question. I smile and take a seat at the blood bar. All around me are the slow and drumming beats of dark music to set the mood of the Vampire Haven. And as I look around, I see vampires all around me drinking from humans. The humans are under their dark spells, entranced by their grace, and willfully give them their wrists and their necks. I feel a sense of disgust as I watch them, and I turn away and look straight into Sari's cold eyes.

"Do you know what I have come across whilst walking among the streets?" I ask her, eyeing another vampire who approaches Sariä and I. He is a powerful vampire as I am, with silver dyed hair and an upside-down cross tattooed on his forehead. He is called Blase by all vampires, and only a few know his real name. I ignore his stare as I continue to speak to Sariä. "I was out hunting when I realized I was being hunted as well. In the dark I met a man who claimed he was a Vampire Hunter."

Sariä gasps and turns to Blase, but he only stares at me blankly. I go on. "He thought he could kill me...and he almost did. When he attacked me, I could hardly fight him. My power was almost gone," I say, watching the horrified faces of the vampires around me who are listening to what I say. "He had on this special body armor... so I could not attack his body. And when I tried to use my mind, it was blocked. I was weak...." I tell them. They are all looking at me in shock.

"You were...weak," Sariä repeats slowly. She is lost in her thoughts and she looks as if she were to cry. I stare at her and open my mouth to comfort her, but a voice stops me.

"But you are not defeated..." the vampire Blase whispers. He stills stares at me intently, his dark cold eyes watching me as if I were his own prey. I nod at what he says and look down. He makes me feel naked...as if I could hide nothing from him...and his stare makes me quiver. I look away from him and begin to talk in more of a whisper.

"I barely managed to kill him. But what dismays me is how this Vampire Hunter became so powerful," I say. I think of telling them of the stone, but something in my mind tells me not to. It could be dangerous. I look around at the vampires and see the fear in their faces. I close my eyes and listen to their thoughts, and each one comes pouring out of their minds like sand. _My God! I can't go out into the night! They are out there!_ I hear one vampire thinking. He holds a dead woman's hand in his lap and forgets about her entirely, because his fear consumes him. I look around the room and find every vampire quiet in fear. Their thoughts scream into my mind and my head pounds with it all. I stand up from the bar and turn to leave. "Keep guard," I whisper to them all...and they can hear me. And then I walk out of the Haven and into the dark night. _At least I have warned them,_ I think to myself.

As I step out into the night air and start walking down the cold New York streets, I see dozens of mortals curled up on benches and even lying on the streets. My thirst grows as I watch them try to sleep as the cold stings their faces...and before I get to my apartment, I have eaten my full of them. I give them a better life, away from the world where I am trapped.

After I drink my full, I disappear in the dark and appear on the steps of the apartment building that I call home. A few humans walking the streets see me appear out of nowhere, and I flash my red eyes at them and immediately the forget they ever saw me. As usual, I feel a pain of sadness throbbing inside of me as I do this, as I have felt when I first did it. I remember standing with my Creator... the day I died and became what I am. He had made me kill my first mortal that day...and as the taste still lingered on my tongue, he turned to me and said, "Someone watches." I remember looking all around me and seeing nothing. But I was young. And I could not see as a vampire could then. But my Master brought the mortal to me, and I can still remember the human's face. It had been a young man...a boy.

"Leave me, you....demons!" the boy had screamed. His screams had echoed through the streets and I seemed paralyzed. I could not stop watching this horrified boy. And then my Master commanded me to take away his memory. I did not know what he meant, as I had never even heard of such things. But my Master ordered me to. And then it happened...as if it were supposed to happen. My mind grew angry and my eyes glowed red. I flashed my eyes at the boy and his screams died. His eyes went blank and it was as if a part of him had died. And he knew nothing of us...of my Master and I. He stood in the street as if he were lost. And then he glared at us and briskly walked off as if nothing had ever happened.

"What...what has just happened?" I had asked my Master. He laughed and put his arm around my shoulders.

"He forgot about us," he said. "We are invisible to them. To the humans. We are dead to the world of the living. Do not forget that." And then he had walked off, leaving me alone in the dark with only my thoughts. It was then that I realized I was truly dead. I could not live among the living. Not what I had thought when I was first Changed. The minute I became a vampire, I believed that my life would be the same, with the exception that I would be able to live forever. Yet, then I learned I could never see the sun again...and that I was to be dead to all. I thought I would be able to return to my family again and to the people I loved. But I learned I could never see them again. A vampire was to forget about their former life entirely. My Master told me to forget about everyone I had loved and cared for. And I told him I would, yet I never did. And their faces still come to me in my dreams. I seem to live in my dreams.

Every time I erased a human's memory of me, I felt even more dead. Do I have to live like this forever? I ask myself, and I know the answer. As I watch the humans walk away from my apartment, forgetting ever seeing me, I feel like calling out to them, "Look! I am here! I cannot be dead if I am here!" But instead, I turn from them, the living, and walk into my dark apartment.

As the night grows older before me, I watch the glowing city from my window. For once, I do not wish to leave my apartment and hunt as I do every night. Instead, I watch all of the humans below me...watching them live and laugh and make themselves believe that demons such as myself so not exist. I watch them and listen to their thoughts, which bring peace to my mind for a small moment. For that small moment, I almost forget about my own life. Just as a human can sometimes forget their own when they cut their pain away...and it lasts only a few minutes. But those minutes are cherished.

As I watch a young man intently and listen to him scream, "No God, No! I killed her....I killed that bitch!" and I learn of how he brutally murdered his wife with a hammer, I hear a noise behind me. I turn away from the man I had been watching on the street and I glare into the dark of my apartment. I hear the whisper of another being, and I jump at the noise. For some reason, I cannot see where the being is, though I always could before.

"Who is there?" I ask the darkness, and I hear nothing in return. I take a step forward and flash my eyes, but nothing comes forth or makes a sound. "I swear, I will kill you if you do not show yourself now," I say to the dark. I hear nothing. Nothing but the sounds coming from the street below...and the voices of the millions of humans and vampires living in the city. I stand still for a moment and listen for anything...my ears a hundred times sharper than a bat's. And then, like the soft stirring of a single blade of grass, I hear something. A rustle of clothing. I laugh, my voice cold and cunning.

"I hear you," I whisper to the dark, the words barely leaving my lips. But the being does hear me. "Step forth...or I shall kill you this instant!" I say to the dark. I wait for something to happen, for anything to happen. But nothing does. And as I step forward and start to focus my mind, I hear a loud whip of the air, and I see a vampire appear out of thin air before me. His shined black shoes step through the air as if he wears an invisible cloak. And then comes his black pants and shirt...and then his marble white face and the upside-down cross tattooed on his forehead. I whisper his name "Blase," before he grabs me by the neck and pins me against the wall. He is as strong as I in every way, and as I focus my mind to throw him off of me, he blocks his mind against mine...and I am as weak as a child in his grip.

"Why do you wish to kill me, Colette?" Blase whispers in my face, and I feel his cold breath against my cheeks. I turn my face away from his, but he takes his hand and guides my chin back towards his own. "Tell me," he says, stroking my cheeks with his sharp nails.

"I did not know it was you," I say to him. "Since I normally do not come across a vampire who conceals himself from the world." I stare at his dark eyes and his grip loosens on my neck. And then, almost as if he never moved his hands, he drops me and I fall to the floor. I rub my neck and stand up to face him, and his eyes remain coldly fixed on my own.

"Colette," he says to me, crossing his arms, "I know you have that stone." I stare at him in shock at what he has just said to me. But he only smiles and shakes his head. "Remember that there are those who can hear your thoughts."

End of Chapter two..............

Please PLEASE review. Would very much like. If you don't review, I'll have to send my vampire friends out to get you. Oh yes! And they are VERY thirsty.

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	4. Escape

A/N: Here's another chappy. Pretty short, but that's because it's just, well, a short chapter. Review and tell me your thoughts. Flames welcomed, but please be a lil nice. Not too mean. :)

†Chapter III†

Ralis Apartment Complex

New York City

The sun begins to creep into my world and I step into my dark closet and see my coffin waiting for me. Some vampires choose to sleep in beds, as the humans do, but I've chosen to sleep in a coffin...because it comforts me and it has become almost a part of me. When I was a young vampire, just changed, I remember searching in the libraries and books for information on "my kind". And behold, I found dozens upon dozens of descriptions of a vampire's coffin. Ever since then, I have found a wonder and amusement of sleeping in a coffin. Why sleep in a bed as humans do? I am not human, nor will I ever be again. I sleep in a coffin, because it is a part of being a vampire. When I sleep inside it, I feel as if I am a part of something. I belong.

Yet as I sleep in my coffin this day, I do not feel comforted. I cannot even sleep because my thoughts are poisoning me. All I can hear in my mind are the words that Blase has spoken to me. _I know, _his voice haunts in my mind. I still picture him in front of me, looking at me with his dark piercing eyes and telling me that the stone is his. He had used his mind against me and made my head throb in pain. "I shall return when the sun leaves the sky," he had whispered in my ear before he left me. "And Colette," he said, "Do not make me kill you." When he left, he whipped the air and disappeared. For a moment, I could hear his laughter around me...as it slowly faded away.

I know that Blase will take the stone from me. Fear begins to overcome me as I lay in the darkness of my coffin. I also realize that I cannot let him have it. When I was still a human being, I knew that it held power, yet I knew nothing of what it was...how it came to be. The Witch Stone, it was called by many who knew of it. The stone of destruction. And Blase wanted it.

With terror, I push up the cover of my coffin and throw it onto the dusty floor of my apartment. _I will not let him have it,_ I think in my mind, and I crawl out of my closet as quick as I can.

The sun is the biggest fear of a vampire. Stay far away...or death shall overcome you, we are told by our Makers. And as I step out of my closet and into my apartment, the apartment that had always been dark to me, I feel my terror rising inside of me. There is no darkness in my apartment; no cover. All I see in front of me is an empty room, with the light of the sun filling the entire of it. The only shadow of the room is the one I am standing in. For once I feel I see the door across the room watching me...waiting to see what the vampire-the beast-will do. My anger grows and I slam my hand into the wall beside me. "Goddamn," I swear...and as I lift my hand to slam it into the wall once more, I stop and smile in realization. The stone is warm on my chest.

Quickly, I take the stone off my neck and hold it in my hands. It glow and as I lift my hands, immediately the rusted shutters of the windows close at my will and I am in darkness. As I walk to the door, it opens for me.

"Well," the apartment owner, Mr. Thacker, exclaims as he sees me in the dark hall. He has never seen me in the day before and he stares at me strangely. I nod and walk briskly past him, my mind a thousand miles away, because I have to think of a way to escape my apartment. I listen to Mr. Thacker's thoughts as I leave him and I almost smile when I hear him think, _What in hell is she doing here? Dear God I need a drink. _But before I smile, any notion of it leaves my mind because I begin to think I have no chance of an escape. The sun's light is everywhere.

Hundreds of humans are walking the street and the noise is almost unbearable to me. In the night, it as if people respect the darkness and they do not yell and scream at each other as in the daylight. The only loud noises of the night are the traffic and the constant shuffling of people. Such has been the music to my ears every night. But as I stand against the front door of the apartment complex and am watching the outside world from the small window, I feel like screaming. The thoughts and fears and screams of the humans are drilling into my mind. _I'm so goddamn late_I hear an older woman thinking;_ Why isn't he going any faster?! _a man screams in his mind at his taxi driver;_ Oh shit, not HIM again _echoes in my head...the thought of one of the many humans walking out in the daylight.

My fear gains as the seconds pass, and I ponder of what to do. I am terrified of the sun, as any vampire, yet I know I must leave. I cannot stay. My finger touches the glass of the window and begins to burn. "Damn,' I curse as I whip it away. The tip of my pale finger is black as night...the flesh melted away. This is what will become of me if I step out there...into the sun. I will burn away into nothing, just ashes blowing in the wind.

"What a fine day it is," I hear a woman saying behind me. I turn around and see a plump old woman staring at me, her face old and wrinkled. I am in her way. She smiles and pushes her way past me, opening the door and stepping out into the sun. She turns back and looks at me strangely, the same way the Mr. Thacker did, and then goes on her way. I do not care what she thinks of me, though. Her voice still echoes in my head saying what a fine day it is. I begin to think what it would be like if the day was not fine. What if the day was terrible. Dark and murky...the sun vanished from the sky...hidden behind dark angered clouds. I imagine the rain pouring down in sheets on the crowd of humans, and the lightning striking the ground in fury. The sky as dark as night.

Just as I think it, such things become. I hear the crowd of humans running under cover, their clothes soaked from the rain pouring from the sky and drenching them. I look up in the sky and see dark clouds appearing, floating across the sky and covering the sun completely. The world grows dark so suddenly. I begin to remember the Bible story, when Moses foresaw the sky of Egypt turning pitch black...the sun disappearing for three days. The sky reminds me of what it had been for the Egyptians when they watched the darkness overcoming the light...and the sun just...disappearing. I watch in amazement.

"What in the hell is happening?" I hear Mr. Thacker remarking behind me. He is looking out the window as I and shaking his head. "Just two damn minutes ago there weren't not a cloud in the sky." I smile and turn to him.

"Well, I must be going," I say. He looks at me as I open the door and step out into the immense storm that has appeared. The door slams behind me, and for once I feel free. My skin feels hot even though the sun is hidden, but the chilling rain pours on it and I feel nothing but alive. I open my arms out and feel the rain and the air of day. For Four hundred years I have not stepped foot outside during the day, but here I am...and I feel free. Blase enters my mind again, but I do not feel fear. By the time the night returns, I shall be gone.


End file.
